Thinking On Paper

Mark Fielding and Jeremy Gilbertson

An independent technology show for those who want to understand the human impact of AI, space tech, quantum computing, and robotics, without the hype, the jargon, or the billionaire worship. Mark & Jeremy present over 300+ episodes with the CEOS, founders and outliers actually building the future. We ask the questions you'd ask if you were in the room. Listeners have learned from IBM, D-Wave, Kevin Kelly, the inventor of the microprocessor, Microsoft whistle-blowers, moon mining NASA CEOs, SpaceX engineers, Carissa Veliz, Anders Sandberg and many more. All human. All original. Start now.

  1. 3 DAYS AGO

    USA V China: When War Reaches Space

    Thinking On Paper ask who owns the Moon, whether the Outer Space Treaty still holds, why 80% of space investment is defence, what the Wolf Amendment did to US-China relations in orbit, whether asteroid mining legislation was written by the companies who'd profit from it, and why the book Space to Grow ends on a warning about war, not wonder.   Watch On YouTube: https://youtu.be/MVBxjZCGfxY -- The space race between the US and China has never been about exploration. 80% of current space investment is defence-related. In the final episode of the Thinking on Paper Book Club series on Space to Grow by Matthew Weinzierl and Brendan Rosseau, Mark and Jeremy trace the politics of space ownership, space law, and who owns the Moon. From the 1967 Outer Space Treaty through Planetary Resources and asteroid mining legislation, the Wolf Amendment that banned NASA from collaborating with China, China building its own space station in response, Trump designating space as a theater of war in 2018, and the Rumsfeld Commission warning of a "space Pearl Harbor."  The episode covers John Locke's labour theory of property and how it applies to mining asteroids worth 100,000 times global GDP, the prisoner's dilemma between the US and China, why there would be no space industry without national security, and Neil deGrasse Tyson on the absurdity of claiming ownership over atoms forged in dying stars. 59 active conflicts currently on Earth as of the 2025 Global Peace Index.  The book's final chapter asks whether humanity can reach space without turning it into another battlefield.  -- Chapters (00:00) Global Conflict and Space Resources (02:04) Human Nature and Space Exploration (03:28) The Economics of Asteroid Mining (05:53) Legal Frameworks for Space Mining (11:05) The Space Resource Exploration Act (13:01) International Reactions to Space Mining Legislation (17:19) Philosophical Perspectives on Space Ownership (20:14) The Role of National Security in Space (20:40) The Role of Government in Space Innovation (21:34) National Security and the Space Industry (23:10) Weaponization of Space: A New Era (24:47) The Prisoner's Dilemma in Space Cooperation (26:40) Humanity's Moral Compass in Space Exploration (27:03) The Future of Humanity in Space

    28 min

  2. 9 APR

    VAST, Axiom & Starcloud: The TOP 10 Biggest Space Tech Investments of 2026 (So Far)

    Space technology investment is surging into 2026. Confidence is high. The ten largest funding rounds total over $3.7 billion. And it's only April. Defence and national security contracts are driving much of the momentum, with companies like Stoke Space, Sierra Space and Cesium Astro attracting hundreds of millions on the strength of government partnerships. Infrastructure remains the dominant investment thesis — from encrypted GPS alternatives and space-based weather platforms to satellite communications and reusable launch vehicles — reflecting a market that is still building the foundational layer needed for commercial space to scale. The biggest surprise sits at the top of the list: Beijing-based iSpace China claimed the single largest raise at $729 million, confirming the US V China space race is very much happening.   Meanwhile, three companies have crossed the unicorn threshold — StarCloud, Tomorrow.io and Sierra Space, the latter commanding a confirmed $8 billion valuation.  Human spaceflight and space station ambition round out the upper tier, with Vast Space and Axiom Space collectively raising $850 million to build the commercial space stations and crew infrastructure that will replace the ISS when it retires later this decade. The Top 10 In Full iSpace China — $729M Sierra Space — $550M (Series C) Vast Space — $500M (Series A) Cesium Astro — $470M Axiom Space — $350M Stoke Space — $350M PLD Space — €210M (Series C) Tomorrow.io — $175M Xona Space — $170M (Series C) StarCloud — $170M -- 🎧 Listen to every podcast⁠ 📺 Follow us on ⁠Instagram⁠ 🏠 Follow us on ⁠X⁠ 🏠 Follow Jeremy on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ To suggest guests or sponsor the show, please email: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz Chapters (00:00) Starcloud (00:52) Xona Space (03:27) Tomorrow IO (06:01) PLD Space (08:00) Stoke Space (10:18) Axiom Space (12:29) Cesium Astro (14:50) VAST Space (19:02) Sierra Space (21:47) I-Space (Beijing Interstellar Glory Space Technology Ltd.)

    29 min
  3. The 1899 Law That Could Regulate AI

    7 APR

    The 1899 Law That Could Regulate AI

    The Martens Clause, a legal principle drafted by Russian-Imperial diplomat Fyodor Martens during the first Hague Peace Conference of 1899, established that even in the absence of specific written law, nations and individuals remain bound by "the laws of humanity and the requirements of public conscience."  Originally conceived as a compromise to prevent the collapse of early international humanitarian law negotiations - when smaller nations like Belgium objected to how occupying powers classified resistance fighters - the clause became a foundational backstop in international law.  It was subsequently invoked in some of the most consequential legal proceedings of the twentieth century, including the Nuremberg Trials of 1945-46 to counter arguments that prosecuting Nazi war crimes constituted retroactive legislation, the 1949 Corfu Channel case where Albania was held responsible for failing to warn shipping of mines in its territorial waters, and the 1986 ICJ ruling against the United States for mining Nicaraguan harbors and supporting the Contra insurgency. Mark & Jeremy from Thinking On Paper are now asking whether this 127-year-old principle could serve as what some are calling a "minimum viable architecture" for governing emerging technologies — particularly artificial intelligence, commercial space operations, and quantum computing — where the pace of innovation vastly outstrips the speed of regulation.  Jeremy argues that the clause's core logic — that something not being explicitly prohibited does not make it automatically permitted — could provide a much-needed ethical and legal floor beneath industries currently operating in regulatory grey zones, from AI training on copyrighted data to autonomous weapons systems and asteroid mining rights.  Mark counters that the clause has historically only been applied retroactively to clear moral atrocities, and that its deliberately vague language, while effective at building diplomatic consensus, lacks the specificity needed to adjudicate the morally ambiguous questions at the frontier of technology, such as algorithmic bias, AI decision-making opacity, and the concentration of technical power among a small number of corporations and nation-states. Please enjoy the show. -- 🎧 Listen to every podcast⁠ 📺 Follow us on ⁠Instagram⁠ 🏠 Follow us on ⁠X⁠ 🏠 Follow Jeremy on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ To suggest guests or sponsor the show, please email: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz -- (00:00) The First Peace Conference: A Historical Perspective (07:37) The Martin's Clause: Implications for Modern Governance (10:05) Space Tech and the Outer Space Treaty (13:58) AI and the Need for Ethical Frameworks (17:21) Accountability in Technology Deployment (22:56) The Future of Humanity: Collaboration vs. Competition

    28 min
  4. Does AI Make War More Likely? We're About To Find Out

    3 APR

    Does AI Make War More Likely? We're About To Find Out

    On January 9th 2026, the US Secretary of Defense signed a memorandum called Artificial Intelligence Strategy for the Department of War. Six weeks later, the US was at war with Iran and AI was identifying targets. Mark and Jeremy read the memo line by line. What they found: a strategy built on speed over safety, experimentation over caution, and the explicit statement that "the risks of not moving fast enough outweigh the risks of imperfect alignment." The memo outlines swarm warfare, AI-generated military intelligence, 30-day deadlines for federating classified data across all departments, and a talent war with Silicon Valley. Anthropic, the company that asked for safeguards against mass surveillance and full automation of the kill chain, was classified as a supply chain risk. This episode asks one question: does AI make war more likely or less likely? -- 🎧 Listen to every podcast⁠ 📺 Follow us on ⁠Instagram⁠ 🏠 Follow us on ⁠X⁠ 🏠 Follow Jeremy on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ To suggest guests or sponsor the show, please email: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz -- Chapters (00:00) Artificial Intelligence Strategy for the Department of War (00:58) Executive Order 14179: America's AI Military Dominance (01:59) China And AI Arms Race (04:36) Anthropic & Eliminating Bureaucratic Barriers (07:20) The 7 Pace Setting Projects (PSPs) In The Memo (08:28) 100% LLM Kill Chain Capability (10:22) Palmer Luckey (11:53) Intelligence & The AI Open Arsenal (13:57) The War Time Approach To Blockers (16:46) AI Talent Acquisition At The DOW (18:54) We must accept that the risks of not moving fast enough outweigh the risks of imperfect alignment

    22 min
  5. Iran Made a Lego War Video. The Whitehouse Was Not Amused

    30 MAR

    Iran Made a Lego War Video. The Whitehouse Was Not Amused

    Iran posted an AI-generated LEGO propaganda video mocking Trump and Netanyahu. The White House fired back with Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty and a Wii Sports video of Iranian military sites being destroyed. A senior White House official told Politico they were "just grinding away on banger memes, dude."  A hundred million views later… - WATCH ON YOUTUBE - This is the AI slop propaganda war, playing out in public - mostly on Twitter -  as the bombs drop, the drones fly and the smoke and mirrors of a confused story evolve. Operation Epic Fury has killed hundreds, triggered one of the largest oil and energy shocks in history, and will reshape the Middle East - and global politics - for decades to come. This is the meme war that accompanies it. We react to all of it. The Iran LEGO propaganda video. The White House GTA Iran meme. The deleted Call of Duty airstrike video. The Wii bowling Iran war clip.  Why did Iran use LEGO? Is this propaganda, or kids playing video game make believe? What does it mean when governments reach for children's toys and video game aesthetics to sell a real war to a generation raised on screens? The answer is uncomfortable. It is a desensitisation of death. It is a military hiring video dressed as a meme. This is part of our on-going AI and the War Machine Season. Please enjoy the show. -- 🎧 Listen to every podcast⁠ 📺 Follow us on ⁠Instagram⁠ 🏠 Follow us on ⁠X⁠ 🏠 Follow Jeremy on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ To suggest guests or sponsor the show, please email: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz Timestamps (00:00) What Is Propaganda? (00:36) Iran Lego Propaganda Video (02:45) Reaction (06:55) Whitehouse GTA Iran War Video (09:07) Epic Fury - US Wii Sports Video (13:22) Call Of Duty Iran War Video

    20 min
  6. Orbital Gridlock: Is 70,000 Satellites the Point of No Return for Kessler Syndrome?

    23 MAR

    Orbital Gridlock: Is 70,000 Satellites the Point of No Return for Kessler Syndrome?

    The Kessler Syndrome, first theorized by NASA scientist Donald Kessler in 1978, is no longer a distant hypothetical. When an active American communications satellite collided with a defunct Russian satellite on February 10th, 2009, at 22,300 miles per hour, it scattered more than 23,000 trackable debris objects and an estimated 100 million smaller fragments into low-Earth orbit (LEO).  Today, companies like Astroscale are racing to develop active debris removal (ADR) technology before orbital overcrowding triggers an irreversible chain-reaction of collisions.  The barrier to launching satellites has dropped dramatically — SpaceX alone has reduced launch costs by over 90% through reusable rocket technology — meaning China, Amazon, and countless private operators are flooding LEO with new constellations faster than any international regulatory body can respond. With Starlink already operating thousands of satellites and a license filed for up to one million objects, the orbital environment is approaching what scientists describe as a tipping point: roughly 70,000 objects in LEO is the threshold beyond which collision cascades become self-sustaining and unstoppable, regardless of whether new launches cease entirely. The space debris crisis is inseparable from a deeper question about market power, monopoly risk, and the long-term governance of the space economy. SpaceX's dominance in orbital launch, satellite internet, and crewed spaceflight has produced extraordinary short-term innovation — but former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine's warning that "a private monopoly that the government is dependent on" poses unique dangers is becoming harder to dismiss.  The US military's submarines, aircraft carriers, and intelligence infrastructure are increasingly reliant on SpaceX's Starlink connectivity and launch capabilities, raising urgent questions about what happens when a single private actor controls the physical infrastructure of a space-to-Earth economy worth trillions.  The tragedy of the commons — the economic principle whereby individuals exploit a shared resource in their own interest until it is destroyed — maps directly onto orbital space: every satellite operator externalizes the debris cost onto every other current and future user of LEO.  Without binding international coordination mechanisms, investment in debris remediation, and genuine competitive alternatives to SpaceX in the launch market, the space economy risks replicating — and amplifying — the worst failures of terrestrial economics in the most consequential new frontier humanity has ever opened. We're reading Space To Grow by Matthew Weinzierl and Brendan Rosseau, this is Part 4.  Please enjoy the show -- 🎧 Listen to every podcast⁠ 📺 Follow us on ⁠Instagram⁠ 🏠 Follow us on ⁠X⁠ 🏠 Follow Jeremy on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ To suggest guests or sponsor the show, please email: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz -- Timestamps (00:00) How 150,000 pieces of space junk ended up in orbit and why nobody cleaned them up (06:21) Kessler syndrome explained: the tipping point where collisions become unstoppable (10:57) Why the insurance market is not pricing orbital collision risk (13:50) Government intervention, the Moon Treaty and the five-year deorbit rule (20:26) Active debris removal: magnets, robots and who is building the solutions (22:37) Astroscale: how one company is trying to clean up space junk commercially (24:53) Who pays to clean up orbit when the market has no incentive to (26:26) Is SpaceX a monopoly and does that matter for the space industry (29:08) NASA Administrator: there is only one thing worse than a government monopoly (33:04) Space governance, coordination and whether the tragedy of the commons can be solved in orbit

    36 min
  7. Scaling Quantum Computers With Spin

    19 MAR

    Scaling Quantum Computers With Spin

    Spin qubits could scale quantum computing using the same semiconductor fabrication lines that print 50 billion transistors on an Nvidia chip. No new manufacturing paradigm required. Brandon Severin, Oxford PhD and founder of Conductor Quantum, joins Mark and Jeremy to explain why that matters.  You need hundreds of reliable qubits for meaningful quantum computation. The industry has dozens. Spin qubits, built from modified transistors, controlled by classical voltages, no lasers, no vacuum, may be the most practical path to millions. This episode covers: Why qubit fidelity and coherence time determine what a quantum computer can actually doHow AI automates the calibration problem that makes human-controlled quantum scaling impossible - "you can't have a billion Brandons"Why trapped ions vs spin qubits is the wrong debateWhat Google's quantum algorithm result actually proved, and why it mattersWhy the physicists who understand semiconductor manufacturing may unlock use cases pure quantum researchers never reachThe two camps dividing the quantum industry: build one qubit at a time, or build for a million Also: quantum startup culture vs the AI boom, Brandon's Y Combinator experience, and why scaling quantum looks more like building a rocket ship than climbing a ladder. -- Brandon Severin: https://www.conductorquantum.com/ -- ⁠⁠Listen to every podcast⁠⁠ Follow us on⁠ ⁠Instagram⁠⁠ Follow us on⁠ ⁠X⁠⁠ Follow Mark on⁠ ⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠ Follow Jeremy on⁠ ⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠ Read our⁠ ⁠Substack⁠⁠ Email: ⁠hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz⁠ -- Timestamps (00:00) Introduction: spin qubits and the quantum scaling problem (03:47) Trapped ions vs spin qubits: fidelity, coherence, and tradeoffs (06:14) What qubit fidelity means and why it determines scaling limits (08:25) What is a spin qubit? Building from the transistor up (11:06) Semiconductor fabrication as quantum computing's manufacturing advantage (15:00) The quantum circus: superposition, measurement, Schrödinger's cat (17:17) Shuttling qubits — moving electrons across a chip (20:33) How AI automates quantum calibration (the control problem) (25:00) Quantum scaling vs AI scaling: the GPU parallel (29:08) Quantum startup culture and the AI generation gap (32:59) Building for a million qubits — rocket ships vs ladders (36:52) Why quantum is taking so long: talent, concentration, and meaning (39:43) What seems impossible now that will be routine in 20 years

    44 min
  8. This Is What You Can Do With 100 Logical Qubits: The Race To The Quantum Tipping Point

    12 MAR

    This Is What You Can Do With 100 Logical Qubits: The Race To The Quantum Tipping Point

    Quantum computing has been five years away for thirty-five years. Infleqtion CTO Pranav Gokhale makes the case that 2028 is different, because for the first time, logical qubits actually exist. He explains what a logical qubit is using a Wi-Fi analogy: noisy physical qubits are like corrupted data packets; logical qubits are the clean, usable signal that comes out the other end. Humanity had zero logical qubits before 2023. Infleqtion now has twelve, with a public roadmap to thirty in 2026 and one hundred in 2028. At one hundred logical qubits, material science and drug discovery become the first real quantum use cases - and the timeline stops being a prediction and starts being an engineering problem. -- Other ways to connect with us: ⁠Listen to every podcast⁠ Follow us on ⁠Instagram⁠ Follow us on ⁠X⁠ Follow Mark on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ Follow Jeremy on ⁠LinkedIn⁠ Read our ⁠Substack⁠ Email: hello@thinkingonpaper.xyz

    7 min
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About

An independent technology show for those who want to understand the human impact of AI, space tech, quantum computing, and robotics, without the hype, the jargon, or the billionaire worship. Mark & Jeremy present over 300+ episodes with the CEOS, founders and outliers actually building the future. We ask the questions you'd ask if you were in the room. Listeners have learned from IBM, D-Wave, Kevin Kelly, the inventor of the microprocessor, Microsoft whistle-blowers, moon mining NASA CEOs, SpaceX engineers, Carissa Veliz, Anders Sandberg and many more. All human. All original. Start now.

Information

  • Creator
    Mark Fielding and Jeremy Gilbertson
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    116
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Mark Fielding and Jeremy Gilbertson
  • Show Website
    Thinking On Paper

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